British authorities complete, but do not release Sinéad O’Connor autopsy

Sinéad O’Connor’s remains were returned to her family following her sudden death last week at the age of 56, according to a new report published in her home country of Ireland.

John Thompson, the clerk of the London Inner South district for Southwark Coroners Court, told the Irish Times on Thursday that O’Connor’s an autopsy of was finished before her remains were released to her family.

Still, her autopsy report may not be available for release “for some weeks,” Thompson told the Irish newspaper.

Details, the newspaper reported, will only be disclosed to the public “if an inquest is opened into her death,” a post-mortem investigative process used in Europe when officials determine a person’s death was suspicious.

So far, the iconic singer’s death is not being treated as suspicious.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad,” O’Connor’s family said in a statement last week. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”

London law enforcement agents said that O’Connor was pronounced dead at the scene when they were called at 11:18 a.m. They reportedly responded to “reports of an unresponsive woman at a residential address in the SE24 area.”

The iconic singer was born on Dec. 8, 1966, in Dublin, Ireland and went on to have an extraordinary career that propelled her to worldwide stardom.

In 1987, at only 20 years old, O’Connor broke into the music scene with her first album, “The Lion and the Cobra,” and produced 10 more studio albums during her career.

Three years after “The Lion and the Cobra,” she became a worldwide sensation when she remade Prince’s ballad, “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

The following year in 1991, O’Connor won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance for her album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.”

During a 1992 guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live” she shocked the world after she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II, a move that led her to being banned from NBC for life.

She later explained she made her move as a sign of protest to raise awareness about the media’s silence amid the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandals. 

Her tragic end came a year and a half after her 17-year-old son, Shane, committed suicide in January 2022.

In 2022, she was hospitalized after tweeting alarming, later-deleted tweets that she wanted to “follow” her son.

One of her last tweets was dedicated to her son, in which she detailed her sadness, saying she had “been living as [an] undead night creature since” he died. 

O’Connor is survived by her three children, Yeshua Bonadio, 16, Roisin Waters, 27 and Jake Reynolds, 36.